HEALING THE SOUL

Few of us have a father with the gift of psychic healing, but it was so in the case of physician Dr David Lilley, a specialist in homeopathic medicine based in South Africa. His dad, William Lilley, had remarkable clairvoyant / clairaudient skills from a young age, and by his teens was a proficient trance-medium. Though 'Billy' was from a poor mining community in Yorkshire, these peculiar abilities led him on a lifelong journey of healing - primarily with homeopathy. His story is too extraordinary to summarise much further here, but suffice to say that William Lilley, channelling the medical skills of a spirit guide ('Dr Letari' 1889-1914, late of Peshawar, India, now Pakistan) and aided by the financial backing of a Leeds industrialist established a number of clinics in England, the largest in Marylebone close to Harley Street during the latter part of WW2, practising both personal and absent (remote) healing. Early the 1950s he moved to South Africa where he continued to work until his death in 1972. His case load amounted to many thousands; his cures the witness of many sufferers; and his skills tested and proven by medically qualified physicians of open mind.

This story is told in full in the second half of the Volume 1 of Healing the Soul by his son who qualified in medicine from the University of Pretoria in 1962 subsequently training in both Homeopathy and Osteopathy. Lilley 'junior' did not inherit his father's psychic abilities, yet his childhood experiences, and those as an adult working alongside his father underpin his philosophy as a medical practitioner.

Dr Samuel Hahnemann, whose life David Lilley describes in the first half of the book, set his supremely analytical mind to the nature and treatment of disease. Born in Saxony in 1755, the son of a painter in the porcelain factory in Meissen, Samuel was a polymath to whom the philosophical basis for homeopathy is attributed. A contemporary of Beethoven and Mozart, one ponders - as an aside - the intellectual prowess of the Germanic peoples in those times. Yet unlike these famous contemporaries, few - even in the medical world - know of him, and fewer still have read his insightful Organon of Medicine. Granted, as Lilley points out, Hahnemann did not suffer fools gladly, which hardly endeared him to his professional colleagues, but irascibility can be a companion of genius and a necessary catalyst for change.

Hahnemann's complaint was that the endless theories put forward by the physicians of the day as to the inner workings of body, was often pure speculation (the first edition of Gray's Anatomy in 1858 post-dated Hahnemann's death by 15 years). Clearly the opposite is true today, but this should not negate Hahnemann's contribution which was holistic and not reductionist.

A few helpful pages contextualise the influence of the Greek Schools on 18th century medicine (Galen etc.), together with that of Paracelsus in the 16th century, who like Hahnemann perceived both a material (the body) and a non-material realm (life force). For Paracelsus and Hahnemann, it is the latter that is primarily the source of disease, a concept lost in the shadow of the dominant scientific materialist / reductionist model of today. His work as a translator (he spoke eight languages, as well as being physician and chemist) led him to the Materia Medica of Scottish physician William Cullen wherein the curative properties of Cinchona (a source of quinine - hence used to treat intermittent fever or ague) were described. From self-experimentation on the effects of the medicine, the first law of homeopathy, The Law of Similars or Similia Similibus Curentur (like cures like) was born. By the end of his life (1843), The Organon had gone through five editions, a sixth being published posthumously.

Lilley concludes the story of Hahnemann's life with insights into the life of Dr Constantine Herring (also of Saxony) who was an influential figure in homeopathy in the United States in the later part of the 19th century. The controversy that continues to dog homeopathy to this day is aired in the penultimate chapter in this section entitled 'Pride, prejudice and politics' - the title is summary enough - and concludes with a look at the nature and purpose of disease; man's dynamic (immaterial) nature; the limitations of materialistic medicine; and the potential relevance of quantum physics.

Having set the stage in Volume 1, Volume 2 moves forward the central theme namely 'Healing the Soul'. Volume 1 looked back at two lives: that of Samuel Hahnemann's as - inter alia - scientist and philosopher; and that of William Lilley whose work amply validated Hahnemann's conclusions as to the immaterial or spiritual nature of disease.

The reader may choose - as this reviewer did - to first read part two of Volume 1 (each part about 250 pages). The same might be said for Volume 2 which also has two parts of similar length. The focus of the first part is the Archetype, a primal pattern that has polarity - an ideal and its antithesis. The giant thinkers in this field of study - analytical psychology - were Sigmund Freud and his most talented pupil, Carl Gustav Jung, and it is in part two that their work on the Psyche - that totality of the human mind - is looked at in some detail.

Part one opens with an explanation of the term, Archetype. The author then considers the atavistic (ancestral) form, reaching back to the Creation and the 'birth' of the first atoms (hydrogen / helium), using data from the homeopathic 'provings' (the outcome of testing homeopathic remedies on a control group of healthy persons) to illustrate those forms.

The birth of the universe - 'stellar alchemy' - has great meaning for Dr Lilley, for whom there is most surely both a Cosmic purpose and design. By way of illustration he moves on to consider in some depth two other fundamental elements arising from this stellar alchemy that have deep significance as homeopathic medicines, carbon (graphites) and silica (silicea). Whilst for the former he concentrates on un-personified characteristics, in the latter case the silicea remedy picture is compared with the personality characteristics of such remarkable minds as those of Galileo, Newton and others.

In part two, Freud's psychosexual development stages are appraised, with the occasional foray into the remedy pictures from the homeopathic materia medica to illustrate correspondence, together with a retelling of the Oedipus myth from a homeopathic perspective. The profound consequences of 'fixation' during development phases on the psyche, and the potential releasing power of homeopathic treatment is considered, notably through the picture of homeopathic arsenicum album, best known - in raw material form - as arsenic trioxide, once the preferred poison of the serial killer. Portraits of some infamous murderers demonstrate the relevance.

Whilst Freud's work has found more acceptance within conventional medicine, it is the later perspective of Jung that best aligns with homeopathy. Dr Lilley sees homeopathy as 'the therapeutic arm of (Jungian) analytical psychology…provid[ing] clear proof of the theoretical conclusions that Jung propounded'. As with Hahnemann's homeopathy, the implications of Carl Jung's understanding of the spiritual, and his concept of Individuation (spiritual attainment) have yet to be fully appreciated.

The concluding chapters are primarily a reflection on Jungian thought. The symbolism of the pin (needle) is considered, then the archetypal form of the spiral which finds expression in such as Yin & Yang, the Chakras and Nadis and indeed DNA, concluding with the Jungian concepts of Animus & Anima and The Shadow.

These two volumes (a third is in preparation), cover a vast amount of ground; this is after all an attempt to put some portion of a lifetime's experience and learning to paper. A criticism might be that too much ground is covered; but tempus fugit - what needs to be, must be written. There then arises the question of the readership. For whom is the book written - the psychologist, the homeopath, or those with general interest in soul healing? Setting that question and any criticism aside, these volumes amply demonstrate the complexity of the human psyche, and the limitations of the reductionist thinking that dominates science today (especially in medicine). Dr Lilley will justifiably receive plaudits from the converted, but will the prejudiced be willing to open the covers and stay the course?